(I do feel compelled to point out that, at least in our neck of the woods at the time, the game you can play here was definitely known as Donkey Kong II, not DKJ. DKII was Mark's...I was given Mario Bros that year, and Mich got Rain Shower. Rain Shower and Mario Bros were essentially identical, except Rain Shower was blue and involved laundry and birds, while Mario Bros was burgundy and involved Italians and rectangles. I did own Donkey Kong Jr, though, and loved it...it was the fastest and most fun of all the Nintendo games.

My school was rife with such games, and all the kids who had them used to play on each other's at lunch. For most of that year, I of course didn't have one, and scarce were the colleagues generous enough to let someone else play their game sans recompense. Lo those many months when I was game-less! The best I could do was beg someone to let me play Snoopy Tennis for a few minutes. Later on, when the bus to Hadley Wood started leaving at 4:15 rather than 3:30, I opted to become an after-school monitor since I was hanging around school anyway. This primarily entailed me and another boy going through our classmates bags after everyone had left and playing their video games for 45 minutes. )